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Robert McKane
In the short story Bob's Box, Robert Mckane, known as "Bob" for short, was an inter-island trader who had spent most of his life cruising among the islands of the South Seas on board his schooner, the Southern Star. Also known as "Big Bob" or "Bob", McKane's background was a mystery. Indeed, it was thought McKane might not be his real name. He had come to the South Seas some forty years before the events in the story. Some rumours had it that he had once been an officer in the Royal Navy but had been dismissed for one reason or another. Other rumours suggested that he had gone crazy after his wife had "gone off the rails". Bob had a successful career as a trader and was thought to have amassed a large amount of money which his crew believed was kept in a box in his cabin. Bob frequently went into his cabin to look at the contents of the box but no one else had ever seen what was inside. The Southern Star struck an uncharted reef near Gospel Island around November 1910. Bob survived the shipwreck and reached Port Moresby where he began saving money to buy another ship. After a year or two, he had amassed enough to buy the Lisbeth which he equipped with diving equipment. Bob spent the next two years looking for the wreck of the Southern Star without success. Those who knew Bob observed that he was never the same again after losing his box. He had become cantankerous and few seaman were willing to join his crew. The Lisbeth was lost in a storm in 1913 but Bob continued his search for the box, presumably in another, unnamed ship. He was still looking for it when he was killed when the German cruiser Emden sank his ship. Bob's persistence led to all kinds of rumours and inflated stories about its contents, ranging from pearls the size of pigeon's eggs to a map of a lost gold mine in the Solomon Islands. It was therefore no surprise that when news of his death became known, various treasure hunters descended on Gospel Island in search of the wreck of the Southern Star, all without success. When Swedish trader Sven Ericson met Biggles at Rarotayo, he became interested to hear Biggles and Sandy Wyndham describe how aircraft had been used to spot submarines under the sea during the 1st World War. Sven had been searching for wreck of the Southern Star without success for some time and now thought an aircraft might be the answer. Biggles and Algy agreed to Sven's proposal and the subsequent search and recovery of Bob's box formed the main plot of the story. In the editions of the story published after the 1950s, the various dates in narrative were transposed some 25 years in an attempt to modernize the plot for a new generation of readers. Hence, the Southern Star sank in 1935. The reference to the Emden was dropped. Category:People Category:Biggles characters Category:Interwar era characters